Time is running out; the axes are already falling; the forest fires have been ignited… the forest stretches out its arms in supplication.
In 1980, this impassioned plea by the writer and poet Sugathakumari, published in a Malayalam daily, heralded the birth of a new kind of environmental movement. The Silent Valley Reserve Forest – Kerala’s only evergreen forest and a major biodiversity hotspot – was in danger of being encroached by a hydro-electric project.
Hydro-electric dam protest movements are seldom successful in India. Since independence, development related projects have displaced up to 50 million people in India, despite many protests. What hope did a forest have, that had never been inhabited by humans in its 50 million years of unbroken evolution?
What happened instead was a landmark movement for environmental activists in India. The Save Silent Valley movement was not only a success but laid the ground for future successful movements in other parts of India, such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan. What made this movement different was that it had writers and poets on its side, in a state famed for its cent-per-cent literacy today. As Sugathakumari wrote:
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